Beltracchi learned to paint from his father, an art restorer and church muralist who dabbled in painting copies of works by Rembrandt, Pablo Picasso, and other well-known masters. As a teenager, Beltracchi began painting fakes of Old Masters—not copies, but new works that did not exist, which he painted in the style of Old Masters—to sell at flea markets. Throughout the 1970s and ’80s he lived a nomadic, drug-filled, bohemian lifestyle in cities across Europe. During that period he began painting works by French Modernists and then German Expressionists, as the materials which those artists would have used were easier to find. He was particularly skilled at painting works like those by lesser-known German Expressionists Molzahn and Campendonk. His Campendonk paintings were so expertly executed that he managed to fool the leading scholar on the artist, Andrea Firmenich, who, at the time, was compiling Campendonk’s catalogue raisonné and mistakenly included some of Beltracchi’s paintings in the publication. In the mid-1980s Beltracchi took on a business partner, Otto Schulte-Kellinghaus, who would later also be held accountable for playing a role in their criminal scheme.

Beltracchi (then still Fischer) met Helene Beltracchi in 1992. The next year they married (he took her name) and became partners in crime. About 1995 the Beltracchis invented a story about a recent inheritance of a pre-World War IIart collection. The story told of Helene’s grandfather, Werner Jägers, who had lived in Cologne and befriended Jewish art collector and gallery owner Alfred Flechtheim. When Hitler came to power and Flechtheim was forced to flee Germany, according to the Beltracchis, the gallery owner sold a group of works to Jäger for a nominal fee. The collection came into Helene Beltracchi’s possession, according to the story, after Jäger died, along with photographs proving provenance. The couple went to great lengths to demonstrate authenticity. For example, the intentionally blurry overexposed photographs of Helene’s “grandmother” (really Helene) had been taken by Wolfgang on pre-World War II photo paper to ensure the appearance of age. They also bought frames and canvases of works from particular eras at flea markets and reused them. Many of the paintings sold very well at auction.

The Beltracchis left their home in Viersen, Germany, for the south of France, where he continued to paint, and Helene continued to get Wolfgang’s counterfeit paintings to auction. Some of his paintings fetched high six-figure sums at auction, such as Beltracchi’s Campendonk painting Landscape with Horses, which actor Steve Martin bought at auction for $860,000 in 2004. By the early 21st century Beltracchi had mastered the style and technique of Ernst. The leading Ernst scholar, Werner Spies, went on record authenticating The Forest (2) (an Ernst by Beltracchi), as well as six other alleged Ernst paintings. The Forest (2) was bought from a Paris gallery in 2006 for about €5.5 million (about $7 million) by French media mogul and art collector Daniel Filipacchi.

In 2008 new owners of an alleged Campendonk (titled Red Picture with Horses) from the “Flechtheim Collection” had the painting authenticated by a forensic specialist who detected a paint that included titanium white, a pigment that was not yet in use in 1914, the date Beltracchi had assigned to the Campendonk. Many more paintings from the “Flechtheim Collection” were then examined and tested, and the Beltracchis’ scheme unraveled. Beltracchi admitted to forging about 300 paintings by more than 50 artists over the course of 35 years. In October 2011 he and his wife were sentenced to jail time for 14 confirmed forgeries, Helene for four years and Wolfgang for six years. (Neither had to serve a full sentence: Helene was released in February 2013 and Wolfgang in January 2015.) After their sentencing, the Beltracchis racked up a number of civil suits filed by owners of fake paintings. They also published two books (in German) about their exploits and were the subject of a documentary, Beltracchi: The Art of Forgery (2014), directed by Arne Birkenstock.